Better recalls through magical thinking

So, Mr. Recall-Petition Circulator, what's the deal here? Why are you trying to get rid of Mayor Jim Suttle?

Long story short, it's all about taxes. Omaha can't afford a spendthrift, tax-crazy mayor like that!

Here's the deal. You see, Jim Suttle . . . mumble mumble . . . uh . . . broken promises . . . uh . . . union deal that cost taxpayers a million dollars. OK, I'm gonna skip some of this stuff . . . mumble mumble . . . you can read it for yourself, but they sayin' it's gonna cost $900,000 to recall him out of office, but that's a bunch of bullcrap . . . mumble mumble . . . he ain't worth supportin'.

It's all perfectly clear, and it's all brought to you by "consultants and people running the campaign who are kind of, you know, conservative . . . fiscal conservative types from D.C. and stuff."

So just rest assured that the recall people ain't full of bullcrap or nothin' like Jim Suttle. I mean, would they lie to you?


PAY NO ATTENTION to those media people behind the curtains telling you about a 2-percent restaurant tax.

No! No! It's a 15-percent tax! Yeah . . . that's the ticket!

Seriously, man. Would a petition-consulting company that's "all over" lie to you, Mr. Voter? No!

And not only would such a big company. . . one that's "like a conservative, libertarian, sort of tea-party effort" . . . not only would it not lie to you about a 15-percent tax, it'll help defray the cost of a recall vote just to show you that the guys in charge are as swell a bunch of guys as ever tried to run a mayor out of office.


TRUST US, the taxpayers won't have to pay a dime for a slew of special elections.

How? Ancient Chinese secret . . . money men!

"Well, if we run with a spring election it won't cost anything extra. But we do have backers that, if they say it's gotta be a special election, we have backers that are willing to pay it."

Who are these backers of whom you speak?

"Well, I'm not sure who all these money men are, but they're, they're the ones who are behind this."

Oh.


AS IT turns out, the "money men" are . . . the federal government! Just the kind of fiscal-conservative, libertarian, tea-party solution that we need!

I don't know why we never thought that the conservative, libertarian, tea-party recall organizers would have all the federal-funding-of-local-elections bases covered.

See, a recall vote would be mostly paid for with federal money "because it's an election."

It all makes so much sense if you don't think about it.